The 100 Greatest Videogames. The Ultimate Collection of Modern Classics

213 Pages·2016·36.66 MB·English

A N E D G E S P E C I A L E D I T I O N
the 10 0
greatest
videogames
THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION
OF MODERN CL AS SICS
2016 EDITION

the 10 0
greatest
videogames
THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION
OF MODERN CL ASSICS
2016 EDITION

intro
Welcome to the 2016 edition of The 100
Greatest Videogames. If you’re not familiar
with the format, here are our rules. In
compiling this list, we worked to simple
criteria: all formats – portable, touchscreen,
console, PC, whatever – were eligible; we
could include only a single entry from any
series that features straight-up sequels;
and each game had to stand up today
rather than making the cut for reasons
of nostalgia or historic significance.
Not all of the games featured here are
new, however. In fact, some of the most
invigorating parts of the curation process
involved pulling out and replaying a number
of the most seasoned titles from the Edge
archives. Hopefully this much-argued-over
collection will inspire you in the same way.
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contents
ADVANCE WARS 166 DROP7 158 KERBAL SPACE
PROGRAM 146
ANIMAL CROSSING: EARTHBOUND 80
NEW LEAF 22 LEAGUE OF
ELITE DANGEROUS 34
LEGENDS 50
BATMAN:
FAR CRY 4 104
ARKHAM KNIGHT 82 LEFT 4 DEAD 2 60
FEZ 114
BATTLEFIELD 4 68 LIMBO 76
FINAL
BAYONETTA 2 186 LITTLEBIGPLANET 3 106
FANTASY XII 14
BIOSHOCK 42 MARIO KART 8 170
FIRE EMBLEM FATES 130
BLOODBORNE 200 MASS EFFECT 2 92
FTL: FASTER
BOMBERMAN 36 THAN LIGHT – METAL GEAR
ADVANCED EDITION 88 SOLID V: THE
CALL OF DUTY 4:
PHANTOM PAIN 174
MODERN F-ZERO GX 28
WARFARE 44 METROID PRIME 70
GRAND THEFT
CASTLEVANIA: AUTO V 204 MINECRAFT 188
SYMPHONY
HALF-LIFE 2 198 MONSTER
OF THE NIGHT 74
HUNTER 4
HALO 3 136
CIVILIZATION IV 64 ULTIMATE 100
HEARTHSTONE:
COUNTER-STRIKE: NIDHOGG 112
HEROES OF
GLOBAL OFFENSIVE 62
WARCRAFT 72 OKAMI 94
DARK SOULS 206
HER STORY 10 OUTRUN 2006:
DEAD SPACE 122 COAST 2 COAST 58
HYPER LIGHT
DEMON’S SOULS 164 DRIFTER 18 OVERWATCH 116
DESTINY 142 ICO 160 PAC-MAN
CHAMPIONSHIP
DISHONORED 148 INSIDE 132
EDITION 40
DOOM 108 JOURNEY 120
PERSONA 4
GOLDEN 90
DOTA 2 124 KATAMARI DAMACY 20
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PORTAL 184 SUPER MARIO THE WITCHER III:
MAKER 128 WILD HUNT 102
PRINCE OF
PERSIA: THE SUPER MARIO THE WITNESS 168
SANDS OF TIME 16 WORLD 178
TITANFALL 56
PUYO PUYO 86 SUPER MEAT BOY 52
TOWERFALL
PUZZLE SUPER METROID 162 ASCENSION 78
& DRAGONS 46
SUPER TRANSISTOR 84
PUZZLE BOBBLE 26 MONKEY BALL 12
TRIALS FUSION 110
RED DEAD TEARAWAY 48
ULTRA STREET
REDEMPTION 180
TETRIS 196 FIGHTER IV 172
RESIDENT EVIL 4 190
THE ELDER UNCHARTED 4:
RESOGUN 24 SCROLLS V: SKYRIM 156 A THIEF’S END 176
REZ 66 THE LAST OF US 202 VANQUISH 126
ROCK BAND 3 154 THE LEGEND OF XCOM: ENEMY
ZELDA III: A LINK UNKNOWN 98
R-TYPE FINAL 32
TO THE PAST 144
XENOBLADE
SHADOW OF
THE LEGEND CHRONICLES 54
THE COLOSSUS 134
OF ZELDA:
MAJORA’S MASK 138
SPELUNKY HD 140
THE LEGEND
SPLATOON 150
OF ZELDA:
STARCRAFT II 38 OCARINA OF TIME 192
SUPER HEXAGON 8 THE LEGEND
OF ZELDA:
SUPER MARIO
THE WIND WAKER 152
3D WORLD 118
THE SIMS 3 30
SUPER MARIO 64 182
THE STANLEY
SUPER MARIO
PARABLE 96
GALAXY 2 194
7
100
Format Android, iOS, Mac, PC Publisher/developer Terry Cavanagh Release 2012
Super Hexagon
Super Hexagon is something early games won’t end much The relentless pacing of the
of a poster child, alongside Dark farther along than that. As you game is matched by an aggressive
Souls and Spelunky, for the sadistic begin to sync with the game’s soundtrack by London-based
brutality with which some game rhythm, however, it becomes chiptune musician Chipzel (who
designers gleefully approach their clear that focusing on your has no shortage of experience in
task. Of course, if a game were avatar – as so many games have videogame-related audio, having
impossible it’d be no fun at all; trained players to do – is a created much of her work using
the key to testing players’ limits is surefire route to rapid failure. Game Boys). The arrival of each
positioning the challenge just far There’s no time to wait until wave of obstacles is matched to
enough from impossible to remain after you clear one obstacle to the thumping beat, offering a faint
satisfying and keep them hooked. start thinking about the next; you helping hand in avoiding disaster.
Super Hexagon accomplishes need to focus on the edge of the Super Hexagon was a key game
this with unnerving, hypnotic screen and plan well ahead. in defining the potential of iOS,
precision. The premise couldn’t As you begin to eke out an a format eyed with suspicion by
be more reductive: rotate a tiny additional hundredth of a second core players for so many years,
triangle around a morphing shape or two with each successive run, and delivers a fast-paced challenge
(occasionally a square or pentagon, the game digs in and refuses to let that rivals the best twitch
but more often a hexagon) in the go. And its one-more-go nature is experiences available on consoles.
centre of the screen so that it fits bolstered by some smart design Touchscreen controls, it turns out,
through gaps in the encroaching touches. The fact that each time needn’t equal a dumbed-down or
walls, which move inexorably, and you restart the colour changes, for imprecise interface and, handled
ever more rapidly, towards you. example, or the sheer speed with well, are more than capable of
The game makes its intentions which you can be in the action delivering feedback as vivid as
known from the off by labelling again after failing. Then there’s any clicking button. The game
the easiest of its difficulty levels the brilliant decision to pick up didn’t start its life on iOS,
‘Hard’. Two more, Harder and the music exactly where you left however, and was adapted from a
Hardest, must be bested before off with each retry, a crafty game created by Terry Cavanagh
a further three tiers of terror psychological trick that lessens for a 12-hour game jam.
are unleashed. The aesthetic is the sense of lost progress. But It’s fitting then that the game
stark, pairing muted two-tone more important than any of this took on a life of its own as a
backgrounds with simple pulsing is the use of procedurally stacked spectator sport, attracting huge
lines that change colour like predesigned segments which crowds at specially arranged
particularly gaudy stage lighting. spark waves of recognition-driven events that threw the trance-
The look serves to underscore relief and the ability to learn inducing action up onto big
the unforgiving challenge while useful manoeuvres even as the screens and allowed rookies and
at the same time ensuring that levels come at you in a semi- the uninitiated to marvel at the
the screen is as uncluttered as random order. seemingly impossible prescience
possible – essential given how For a game of such modest of expert players. Watching
fast everything moves. construction, Super Hexagon’s someone skilfully threading their
Your score for each level is onslaught is partnered with way through the most difficult
simply how long you managed to surprisingly refined handling as levels is on par with witnessing
survive, and it’s sobering to find your triangle luxuriously swoops the best bullet-hell runs. There
even five seconds dauntingly out left and right, gracefully arcing are plenty of astonishing efforts
of reach on your first few tries. It through spiral pathways and deftly on YouTube, too, and trawling
takes roughly 1.5 seconds for the avoiding the edges of contracting through them is as moreish as
first wall to reach you, and your shapes. When it goes well, at least. playing the game for yourself.
8

99
Format Android, iOS, Mac, PC Publisher/developer Sam Barlow Release 2015
Her Story
Making detective games every second of that footage, achieved with a form of videogame
is hard. Not games that merely you’ll still be left questioning long thought cursed to bear the
feature crime – all those need certain facets of the facts stench of failed Hollywood
do is recognise the repercussions presented. You may play the game aspirations and a black mark in
of the dead bodies, wantonness with a screen before your eyes, but the history books: full-motion
and pilfered valuables that are an essential, irreducible part of video. That it avoids such failure
more often simply the aftermath the computing is going on in the is down to several factors, but
of the mainstay activities in your synapses you carry around with the most important two are the
standard interactive power fantasy. you every day. That’s a rare and performance of actress (and
No, games that seek to turn you beautiful thing. musician in another life) Viva
into the investigator have to do And the trick Barlow pulls to Seifert, and exemplary framing.
something almost unthinkable in do this is simplicity itself: employ Being the only performer
an industry where every prop is the verb set of the search engine. onscreen, Seifert is left to conjure
turned by an expensive artist, Here’s how it works. Seven police not only a convincing inner life for
every quip and line is scrivened interviews from 1994 are split up her interviewee but also allusions
by a slightly less expensive writer, into over 200 separate chunks and and relationships enough with
and every scene is made under then hidden behind the entry field the invisible cast beyond the
the watchful orchestration of a of the LOGIC database. There’s interrogation room walls to
very expensive director: they have only one rule, one limit to gamify prevent the story collapsing
to let you miss things. In fact, the whole process, which is that inwards on itself. She does so
perversely, they have to actively you will be served only the first capably under intense limitations.
hide things from you. A true five clips to match your terms. The rest is up to Barlow, who
detective game can’t even afford And yet that goes to show how dresses the game up in period
itself the luxury of signposting potent a rule can be, for it takes fashion – everything from the
all the wonderful bits that have what would otherwise be a detail work in the lo-fidelity
been made at great expense that, rudimentary process of watching desktop icons, which arouse
sure, you’re missing out on now, a chronologically scrambled recollections of Windows 95’s
but you could go back to later. narrative and transforms it into a school of interface design, right up
That defeats the whole purpose. procedure of investigation, seeking to the encompassing protrusions
And it’s why so many have failed. out the next suitably distinct of a fake CRT screen. In this
To make this genre really work, string in exactly the same way you throwback interface and the
the game has to let you to figure might scour a crime scene for the cramped framing of the camera
it all out for yourself. merest hint of a clue. Some words lens, he presents Her Story’s
Sam Barlow’s Her Story is in will lead to dead ends – little footage not as misguided vanity,
this list because it does precisely pockets of ’90s miscellanea, nor as a miserly alternative to
that. You decide exactly how much perhaps – that seldom feel like CGI, but as a voyeuristic peep into
of its tale you’re going to imbibe wasted effort but terminate a a process the common man is not
before you make up your mind promising line of enquiry. Others meant to be privy to, with all the
about its central mystery. It even will take you to the seconds of gravitational pull of the forbidden.
offers you an out potentially hours footage that entirely scramble It’s just one more reason to be
before you’ve seen all the video your working theories with brand- attracted to an unconventional
clips that deliver, drip by drip, the new information, upending your game that tugs on threads few
fragments of information that fill fragile understanding of the forces others dare to unravel, and has
in this captivating case and the and motives at play here. already proven that while making
associated backstory. Even should That alone would be remarkable detective games is hard, the result
you choose – choose – to root out enough. However, all this is can amply justify the effort.
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